Generally, the yarn feeding and changing apparatus of the knitting machine disclosed in said Japanese application is provided with a plurality of yarn guides selectively movable between the inactive position and the active position at each of a plurality of knitting stations. The yarn guides are moved by a program controlled selecting device to selectively feed different types of yarn to the knitting needles at each knitting station. One end of each of the yarn guides is connected by a link to one arm of a bell crank with the other arm being connected to the upper end of a vertically movable feed finger operating slide. The lower end of the operating slide is swingable radially in an annular groove in a dial hub. A selection butt and a control butt are provided on the inner side of each of the feed finger operating slides while a returning butt is provided on the outer side of each of the feed finger operating slides. A raising cam is provided on the inner end of the annular groove for engaging the control butt and raising the feed finger operating slides while a returning cam is provided on the outer side of the annular groove for engaging the returning butt and lowering the feed finger operating slides. An advancing cam is supported on the outer side of the annular groove for engaging and swinging the feed finger operating slides inwardly of the knitting machine and a selecting device is provided with selectors which selectively engage selector butts vertically spaced along the feed finger operating slides. The selectors are individually controlled by corresponding electromagnets to control the position of the yarn guides between active and inactive positions.
While the yarn feeding and changing apparatus of said Japanese application is effective to change the yarn guides, the yarn ends extending from each group of yarn guides are cut by a movable cutter in conjunction with a stationary cutter and are clamped by a single yarn clamping device. Therefore, when yarns of different kinds and counts are fed adjacent to each other, the clamped yarn ends are likely to slip from the clamping device and are not positively held thereby. Also, the yarn ends held with resilient pressure in the clamping device are tensioned and cut at the time of starting yarn feeding to the needles so that, in some cases, small pieces of cut yarn are deposited near the knitting station and accumulate as a mass of waste yarn which may be knit into the fabric, damage the needles, or be attracted to the knit fabric.
Maintaining all of the yarn ends in a single clamping device causes the positions of the yarns threaded through active and inactive yarn guides to produce an alternate zigzag pattern along the outer periphery of the knitting machine so that it is difficult to guide the yarns directly into the feeding guide slits of the yarn carriers for accurately feeding the same to the knitting needles. Also, the trailing yarn end cut by the movable cutter in conjunction with the stationary cutter during transfer of the yarn guide from the active position to the inactive position forms floats which tend to be drawn into the fabric during continuous formation of courses of the fabric.